Commonplace book

orig. A book in which ‘commonplaces’ or passages important for reference were collected, usually under general heads; hence, a book in which one records passages or matters to be especially remembered or referred to, with or without arrangement.1578 COOPERThesaurus A studious yong man ... may gather to himselfe good furniture both of words and approved phrases ... and to make to his use as it were a common place booke. 1642 FULLERHoly & Prof. St. A Common-place-book contains many notions in garrison, whence the owner may draw out an army into the field.

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Friday, September 17, 2010

In shul, the biblical book of Jonah is read. If it is the “perfect candidate” for the day’s reading, it is also a book that I know practically by heart. To get beyond my own received ideas about it is increasingly difficult.

What should I read, then? Guy Davenport’s “Jonah” is a story about the prophet. Moby Dick, perhaps. Or Charles Olson’s study of Melville entitled Call Me Ishmael (I’d prefer not to). The best choice might be Orwell’s long essay “Inside the Whale,” but the last thing I need is encouragement to be even more of a political animal than I already am (I do want this t-shirt, though).

Under the Library of Congress subject heading “Repentance—Fiction,” only one title is catalogued, although in several editions: Defoe’s Moll Flanders. But though I have many sins to repent for, a career as a thief is not among them. If I really wanted to make myself miserable (one of the goals of the day) I could take along Mark Pendergrast’s Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. (About one or two in the afternoon, my head will be pounding a relentless message: Coffee! Coffee! Get me some coffee!)

Abraham Rabinovich’s Yom Kippur War would remind me of what else has occurred on the day. Or Haim Sabato’s novel about the war, Adjusting Sights. (I could order the Kindle edition right away, but then I couldn’t read it in shul.) The only distinguished work of fiction that has anything to do with the “sabbath of sabbaths” is I. B. Singer’s Slave, one of my favorite novels growing up. I have not reread it since then. It is the story of unwavering faith under difficult circumstances. Much more than the book of Jonah, it seems the perfect candidate for the day. Why not? If nothing else, I can reacquaint myself with the young and more innocent reader that I am no longer.

If I have offended any readers of A Commonplace Blog over the past year, I ask them please to forgive me. For my native and defining sin of hair-trigger combativeness, I will be repenting for the rest of my life.

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comments:

Sabato's more recent From the Four Winds has a poignant Yom Kippur scene as well. I've excerpted part of that scene in my review, here:http://adderabbi.blogspot.com/2010/07/beyond-melting-pot-review-of-haim.html

If I have offended any readers of A Commonplace Blog over the past year, I ask them please to forgive me. For my native and defining sin of hair-trigger combativeness, I will be repenting for the rest of my life.

This statement has been on my mind since I first read it several weeks ago. I've been meaning to come back and acknowledge the open-heartedness of it.

D. G. Myers

A critic and literary historian for nearly a quarter of a century at Texas A&M and Ohio State universities, I am the author of The Elephants Teach and ex-fiction critic for Commentary. I have also written for Jewish Ideas Daily, the New York Times Book Review, the Weekly Standard, Philosophy and Literature, the Sewanee Review, First Things, the Daily Beast, the Barnes & Noble Review, the Journal of the History of Ideas, American Literary History, and other journals. Here is the Commonplace Blog’s statement of principles, such as they are.